Angara rocket family made history… (Dec. 23rd, 2014)

angara_rocket_family

The Russians are arguably decades in front of us in rocket development since the 1970’s. Actually when they duplicated our shuttle program, it was years in front of anything we had considered. They are proficient and are eager to put resources into incremental change on existing innovation. That is a critical distinction from our (U.S.) space program…

This is the reason that we have used Russian rocket engines for almost everything we send in space and or use Russia herself to send it to space. This was the demise of our space shuttle program, we rode on our laurels and lost our prize…

Consider this, despite the fact that we (U.S.) have plans for a few Russian rocket motors and we have lots of working engines to reverse engineer, we are not fit for building them on the grounds that we don’t know how to do the progressed metallurgy, included in those outlines and blueprints. Russian motors do things that American specialists had thought unimaginable until they saw the motor working and performing . We are still trying to match the capabilities of these rockets and we still have not mastered the metal compounds that make these rockets so unique and durable… (Space X is not in the same league! Yet!)

If you think that only their rockets are superior, then you are ignoring the fact that Russia has this same technology through out its country and we should think about that as they develop weapons…

The Angara rocket family
Function Launch vehicle
Manufacturer Khrunichev
Country of origin Russia
Size
Height 42.7 m (140 ft)-64 m (210 ft)
Width Angara A1.2 2.9 m (9 ft 6 in)
Angara A5 8.86 m (29.1 ft)
Mass 171,500 kg (378,100 lb)-790,000 kg (1,740,000 lb)
Stages 2-3
Capacity
Payload to
LEO (Plesetsk)
3,800 kg (8,400 lb)-24,500 kg (54,000 lb)
Payload to
GTO (Plesetsk)
5,400 kg (11,900 lb)-7,500 kg (16,500 lb)
Associated rockets
Comparable Naro-1 used a modified URM-1 first stage
Launch history
Status Active
Launch sites Plesetsk Site 35
Vostochny
Total launches 1 (A1.2PP: 1)
Successes 1 (A1.2PP: 1)
First flight A1.2PP: July 9, 2014
Boosters (A5) – URM-1
No boosters 4 (see text)
Engines 1 RD-191
Thrust 1,920 kN (430,000 lbf) (Sea level)
Total thrust 7,680 kN (1,730,000 lbf) (Sea level)
Specific impulse 310.7 s (3.047 km/s) (Sea level)
Burn time 214 seconds
Fuel RP-1/LOX
First Stage – URM-1
Engines 1 RD-191
Thrust 1,920 kN (430,000 lbf) (Sea level)
Specific impulse 310.7 s (3.047 km/s) (Sea level)
Burn time Angara 1.2: 214 seconds
Angara A5: 325 seconds
Fuel RP-1/LOX
Second Stage – URM-2
Engines 1 RD-0124A
Thrust 294.3 kN (66,200 lbf)
Specific impulse 359 s (3.52 km/s)
Burn time Angara A5: 424 seconds
Fuel RP-1/LOX
Third Stage (Optional, Angara A5) – Briz-M
Engines 1 S5.98M
Thrust 19.6 kN (4,400 lbf)
Specific impulse 326 s (3.20 km/s)
Burn time 3,000 seconds
Fuel N2O4/UDMH
Third Stage (Optional, Angara A5) – KVTK, under development
Engines 1 RD-0146D
Thrust 68.6 kN (15,400 lbf)
Specific impulse 463 s (4.54 km/s)
Burn time 1,350 seconds
Fuel LH2/LOX

Russia’s space agency has launched a heavy version of the newly developed ecologically clean rocket family Angara. The booster is to take its mock payload right to the geostationary orbit – over 35,000 kilometers from the Equator.

“At 08:57 Moscow time, the heavy-class rocket Angara-A5 was launched by a Space Forces crew of the Arkhangelsk Region from the universal launch site of the state test facility of the Russian Defense Ministry [the Plesetsk Cosmodrome],” the ministry said in a statement.

The success was reported by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to President Vladimir Putin, who was monitoring the launch form Moscow via a video link.

The major peculiarity of this test launch has become its main goal: the rocket is to deliver its mock two-ton payload directly to geostationary orbit – the orbit right above the Equator that has a period of one sidereal day, or 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds; objects rotating around the earth in this orbit can fly as far away as 35,700 kilometers from the planet’s surface.

Launching right into geostationary orbit has never been practiced before by any heavy booster prototype – usually trials are performed to a low orbit with altitudes of up to 2,000km before moving on to higher altitudes.

The first stage of the Angara-5 rocket, capable of delivering up to 25 tons to a low orbit, is powered by RD-191, arguably the world’s best “clean” engine that uses kerosene and oxygen as fuel.

Russia said at the beginning of 2014 that they would send a test rocket in December of 2014. They did and it was very successful…

Congrats Russia…

Posted by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…

The copy scores 59.2 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered fairly difficult to read…

About the Author

Russian_Village

A survivor of six heart attacks and a brain tumor, a grumpy bear of a man, whom has declared Russia as his new and wonderful home. His wife is a true Russian Sweet Pea of a girl and she puts up with this bear of a guy and keeps him in line. Thank God for my Sweet Pea and Russia.